Normal Guy
by Alexandra the Gray
Summary: Summary: Xander Harris, a normal guy... oh really? On the infamous roadtrip, Xander doesn't just give up in Oxnard. He takes a much longer journey, finding things about his life he never really knew he'd missed.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Oh what cruel fate be reality! For alas, I own nothing (Especially Buffy and DC Comics).

AN: Yay for those of you who love reading so much you read history books, manuals, and author's notes for fun.

Basically this is a Xander centered fic with a RealFamily!Theme. I don't plan on having any romance beyond the established canon for both categories (that means Xander/Anya, Lois/Clark, Willow/Oz {at least in the beginning}, Bruce/Girlsss, Buffy/OhNoAngelIsGooooone, etc), and that won't have much to do with the plot if I include them at all.

Also, for those DC canon buffs out there, I am not planning on following any strict guide for our Justic-y heroes. I'm working off of piece meal knowledge from Smallville, Lois & Clark, the Superman and Batman movies, and whatever I've picked up from various other authors about the comic-y side of things, so don't expect any amazingly acurate timelines or anything.

Summary: Xander Harris, a normal guy... oh really? On the infamous roadtrip, Xander doesn't just give up in Oxnard. He makes a much longer journey, finding things about his life he never really knew he'd missed.

Normal Guy by AlexTheGray

Prologue

Jessica Grey leaned heavily against her bathroom sink, and stared. She stared for more than a minute, unable to fully comprehend what she was seeing.

Two. There were two blue lines.

This couldn't be happening, she thought. Not to her. She was so young. Too young.

She swung around, brushing her bangs out of her eyes to survey her meager apartment through the open door. From the pullout couch with the busted spring and ripped cushions, to the coffee table and end tables made from a few cheap boards balanced on milk crates, and over to the poor excuse for a kitchen. There were cobwebs in nearly every corner, the floor was caked with so much grime that she wasn't sure of the original color of the linoleum, and the walls were splattered with the same 'yick'-inducing slime and darker things. The last time she'd look in the refrigerator she could swear that something had moved, jiggled in a way that not even Jell-O was supposed to.

She couldn't do this. She was too young. She was too poor. She was living in squallor, and she couldn't do it.

She'd moved out of the little apartment her parents had in Queens, practically run to the other side of the country. She was going to come to Hollywood, she'd thought. She was going to make it big, she'd thought. She was going to be a star.

Now here she was, living in a rundown apartment, not even in Los Angeles. She couldn't even find work as a waitress in LA. She'd had to move to some dinky little town up the coast, but she'd found work. Granted, it was still waitressing, but work was work. Enough so that she had been able to rent the rinky-dink one-room apartment and feed herself. Now she was going to have to feed...

God, this couldn't be happening. Her father had warned her about her choices, wagged his finger as he'd scolded her about the path she had been headed down.

But had she listened? she thought sarcastically. Nooo. Of course not. Not her, not Jessica, never her. She always had to do things her way, never listening to anybody. Always doing things alo- Oh God, she couldn't do this alone...!

But... but maybe she didn't have to.

She thought about Tony. He and his brother Rory came into the diner for lunch every day, always ordering a beer with their burgers before heading back to whatever labor-intensive work they were doing. She'd first noticed him in late spring, sweating through his undershirt, moisture glistening on his exposed shoulders and muscled arms. He hadn't given her much attention at first, but after a few afternoon of not-so-subtle flirting he'd seen fit to give her the time of day. From then on they'd been on-again, off-again and nothing in between.

Suddenly she thought about one of those abrupt off-again periods. More specifically, the one she'd deamed to occupy her anti-Tony time with. He'd been a boy from Middle of Nowhere, USA, with big hands and bigger eyes. Roaming around the country, probably his first time away from home, he had been sweet and earnest, always trying to please her. Almost always successfully.

But what could he do for her now? It was weeks ago and he had probably put five states between them already. Tony was here, he had a job, she'd known him longer. He could do things for her.

Her and the baby. She'd have to remember that; it couldn't just be about her, not if she wanted him to...

Baby.

Oh God. She clutched the rim of the sink, her legs suddenly weak. Oh god, oh god, oh god...

Twenty minutes later she was back on her feat and heading out to find Tony.

After all, what could a farm boy from Nowheresville, Kansas do for anybody?

AN2: Okay, I think she came out... meaner, or more selfish, than I wanted her to. But it works. Thanks for reading; please review. ATG


	2. Grand Canyon

AN: Gah! I just looked at my story here (my first story here) and I've already got two reviews and a recommendation. Thanks to kayron and bex for the reviews, and FrauleinWeisenheimer for the rec. I am mush, I'm so happy right now.

Okay, I'll try to get to work now.

Normal Guy by AlexTheGray

Chapter 1: Grand Canyon

June of 1999. 30 miles out of Oxnard.

The sun beat down on the black of the highway, liquefying the tar into streams of sticky goo. The air down the road bent and waved in the summer heat, making pools of reflection look like pools of ready to drink water, if only they would stop moving.

Xander stumped along, his flip-flops kicking up the dirt on the side of the road.

This wasn't supposed to be happening. This was supposed to be his great road trip to see all fifty states. He was going to eat real southern fried chicken and New England clam chowder, see the Statue of Liberty, the St. Louis Arch, Mt. Rushmore. God dammit, he was going to have his picture taken in front of the worlds biggest ball of twine and the Mystery Spot of Oregon.

But no. What happens?

The freaking engine fell out. The engine... How does an engine fall out, anyway? Isn't it supposed to be secured to something? You'd think his Uncle Rory could have at least given him a car that wouldn't crap out before the first hundred miles. But again, wrong. Oh so wrong.

His first time leaving Sunnydale and the car practically ignites.

He'd only gotten halfway to the next town after Oxnard when it happened. He'd considered hoofing it back to the town with a definite tow truck, but dammit, he hadn't made it out of Sunnydale just to turn around. Plus the only place he'd seen that he might have been able to get the cash to fix the car had been the Fabulous Ladies' Night Club, and he was so not pushing his luck (or lack of) by going there.

So here he was, plodding down the road headed toward LA. He'd taken his undershirt off and shoved it in one of his back pockets after fifteen minutes in the summer sun, and now, an hour and a half later, his Hawaiian shirt was drench with sweat and sticking to his back like a suction cup, his feet were blistered, and he had one of the worst sunburns of his life. This was more sun than he'd seen in years. Albeit, most of his time was spent inside fluorescent classrooms or out in starlit graveyards.

At least the air smelled fresher. Which was odd, since he was heading toward LA, smog city, not away from it.

But God the sun was strong out here. It was like the sumo-wrestler of suns the way it beat down on his head. It was like he'd never really felt the sun before. Weird for a SoCal kid. Again, you'd think that he'd at least know simple things like the sun was hot, but-

He jerked, losing his footing and sliding down the side of a loose, rocky slope. He grabbed wildly for a handhold, scraping his hands on the sharp edges of rocks. As he reached the end of the slope and the beginning of the shear drop it lead into, his hold finally caught on a large rock more firmly set into the side of the slope, halting his descent.

What the hell?!

He spent a minute trying simultaneously to catch his breath and not hyperventilate. After successfully not fainting, he decided to take stock. His palms were bleeding, his shirt had ridden up to reside around his armpits, his back felt like it had been scraped raw, and from the feel of it he'd lost a shoe. He turned his head to look back and down, checking out what kind of pit he'd been about to fall into; turned away to stare at the dirt in front of him, then turned back to look behind.

Again: what the hell?!

First he was minding his own business, griping to himself about the everything life was throwing at him, then the next minute he's skidding down the side of a freaking CANYON?

He looked back up the slope, wondering if he could work his way back up. But all he saw was loose dirt, loose rocks, and loosely held scrubby plants. He would never get out of there if he tried to climb. He definitely couldn't let go. What he needed was...

"Help!"

It came out on a cough, his mouth and nose filling with the dust from his descent. Gravelly pebbles went tumbling down behind him, falling into the gorge bellow, and his grasp of the handhold above him slipped. Clutching more tightly at it, he spent the next few minutes fighting a coughing fit that would probably send him plummeting to a splattery death.

When he could open his mouth without being sent into a series of racking coughs, he called out again. "S-Somebody help! I- I can't hold on much- Aah!" he cried as his sweaty palms made his grip all the more tenuous.

"Oh God, oh god, oh god..."

A rush of air at his back almost surprised him out of his desperate clutching. Out of the corner of his eye a flash of billowing, primary red caught his attention. Then, as strong hands came to grip him beneath the arms, a voice spoke in his ear. "Sorry, kid. Not God."

Xander had to fight to let go of his rocky handhold as he was lifted from what had been certain doom only moments before. After being practically floated up to more even ground, and as he was turning from his place on said ground (blessed, firm ground), he heard, "Just..."

"Superman," he finished.

And there he was in all his primary color, spandexy, wears-his-underwear-on-the-outside glory. His arms were crossed over his chest as he surveyed his most recent rescue, his cape surged in the wind from the canyon, and yet his hair remained untouched, perfectly groomed with only a single curl in the middle of his forehead. He exuded quiet confidence out of every pore.

Xander's mind whirred like the engine to a car that just wouldn't quite start. Superman had saved him.

"You might want to watch out next time, kid. The Grand Canyon's not the safest place to go exploring," Superman said despite Xander's awe struck, glazed gaze.

Oh wow. Superman had saved him from the Grand-

And his mind finally kicked into gear.

"Grand Canyon?!" he spluttered, heart pumping faster as he turned to look at said national landmark. "Grand... But I wasn't even in New Mexico!"

"Arizona," Superman corrected him, amused by the kid.

"Still," Xander said, beginning to panic. "Still, the Grand Canyon is nowhere near the stretch of highway I was on. The Grand Canyon is nowhere near the Pacific, which I wasn't even forty miles from ten minutes ago."

Superman looked at him now, seriousness mixing in with his curiosity about this strange boy. How did an ordinary teenage boy go from walking down the road in a coastal area to dangling from the side of the Grand Canyon in a matter of minutes?

As Superman was wondering about the logistics of the situation, Xander was attempting for the second time that day to not hyperventilate himself unconscious. This couldn't be happening. He'd just gotten away from the Hellmouth; weird stuff wasn't allowed to follow him! And he knew that whatever weird stuff was happening, it just had to be-

He felt that lurching feeling again, only this time he wasn't moving, wasn't falling. This time everything just suddenly got intense. He could feel every bit of grit and dirt covering him, being inhaled by him. He could taste the dirt on his tongue. He could feel Sumo-Sun beating down like it was as close as the moon.

But all of this was nothing to the sounds. The wind roared along the walls of the canyon, a hawk screeched in the sky, an insect beat its wings a half-mile away. And Superman, standing right before him, was breathing in, breathing out, his heart was beating a steady tha-thump, his boots were scuffing the dirt at his feet as he adjusted his stance. It all beat at the inside of his head; it was all too much.

Superman was there when the kid sank to his knees, his hands pressing desperately at his ears as he murmured, over and over, "Too much, too much, it's all too loud," before it completely overwhelmed him and he slid into unconsciousness.

And there he had his answer. How does an ordinary teen find himself hundreds of miles from where he was a few minutes ago? Easy. He doesn't. An ordinary teen just doesn't.

AN2: So yeah, it's primarily going to be a BtVS/Superman fic, but there will be some Justice League-y stuff along with some Batman-y action. I don't know how often I'm going to update after this. I've been oddly excited about this story so I've pretty much been pumping it out so far. Thanks for reading; please review.

ATG


	3. Watchtower

AN: Eeeeeeee! I just looked at my story, and minutes after posting the first chapter I find reviews, glorious reviews. I'm just so giddy. Thanks to Greywizard, danielhimura, Kirallie, xwinterangelx, Morgomir, and XanderHalcyon for their reviews, and to RubyPaladin for reviewing and recommending this story. I just feel so happy thanks to all of this attention and the great ratings that I've decided to start the next chapter already.

Normal Guy by AlexTheGray

Chapter 2: Watchtower

Watchtower II, the Moon.

White and gray. Those colors monopolized the stark infirmary, from the strached sheets and painted walls to the brushed steel counters and gleaming medical instruments. The colors were so muted and monotone they made Clark feel like a walking neon sign.

Or a sitting neon sign.

He always felt strange when he sat in his costume. His cape always managed to wind up underneath him, making the collar pull against his throat. He always squirmed and fidgeted; first he had his arms crossed, then his hands were in his lap, then he was leaning forward, bracing himself on his knees. But if he wasn't sitting he would be pacing, wearing a hole in the floor.

Maybe it wasn't the sitting; maybe it was just the room. The sterile, no-color room. This was the Justice League infirmary; they were superheroes. You'd think they could at least make the recovery rooms a little less like a hospital. Maybe make it a little easier to pretend you weren't sitting next to someone unconcsious and possibly hurt. Make it possible to think about something other than the friends and family that had layed in beds like this, hurt worse than this.

At least there was a way to think about something other than past failures.

The kid in the bed was breathing heavily, almost panting, but still unconcsious. He was still covered in the grime from the canyon and old sweat from the heat, but even in the cool of the air conditioned room, new beads of moisture accumulated on his brow. His eyes moved restlessly behind his eyelids, and he would twitch every few moments. Especially at a new sound. Clark knew that feeling, had experienced the pain the first time he'd developed his super hearing.

He was still wearing the almost blindingly bright red Hawaiian print shirt and baggy canvas shorts he'd been in, but he'd lost the other of his fluorescent green flip-flops when Clark had brought him here.

It had taken less than ten seconds to get the kid out of Earth's atmosphere, up to the Watchtower II, and into a safely climate controlled area. After putting out a request for someone with the skills to examine a person, he'd headed straight for the infirmary. Now it was an hour later, and he was beginning to think that he should have made his request for someone with medical knowledge a bit more urgent.

Looking down at the boy, who couldn't have been more than nineteen, Clark thought that maybe he should have left the boy in a normal hospital, away from the machinations of the frighteningly driven superheroes who resided within these walls. But he had seen the way the boy had clutched at his ears as the world seemed to crash in on him from all sides, the incomprehension and panic when he had found out where he was. No way was this kid normal. Not anymore.

And there was no way he was just going to leave him in a strange hospital where no one would know what to do with him, where the only ones that would know probably couldn't be trusted with him.

So Clark sat in the uncomfortable plastic chair that was really too small for most of the members, and waited for someone to get there. To figure out what was going on.

'Cause Clark had no clue.

Just as he was about to get up to go look for someone to help him, the doors behind him came open with a hissing 'schnict'. Looking over his shoulder, Clark came face to face with J'onn J'onnz, the Martian Manhunter. A grin suddenly splitting his face, Clark came up out of his tiny chair, nearly tripped on the end of his cape, and shook hands with the martian turned police detective despite the sizeable stack of paperwork he held in his arms.

"Sorry to keep you, my friend,"J'onn said. "There was a bit of footage I had to go through before coming here."

When J'onn brought the tomb of paperwork up before him, he felt a wave of dread overtake him. "And I had to stop and get the paperwork you've been putting off," he continued.

"Do I have to?" Clark whined, his shoulders already slumped in defeat. He'd known what the answer was before he'd opened his mouth.

"You know the new rules, Clark," his friend replied, as he always did when asked. "In order for an organization our size to function, we have to know what's going on. Who have we saved, how many hazards are out there, who's gone off to join the enemy. That means paperwork." At the end of his reply he handed the stack over, and turned his attention to the bed at Clark's back.

Moving around his brightly colored friend, J'onn surveyed the boy before him. While the article of clothing he was wearing was nearly as bright as Clarks, the kid himself was startlingly pale, and not just from his current condition. Despite the redish tinge that remained on the tip of his nose, most likely from an already healed sunburn, he looked like he hadn't seen the sun in ages. Coupled with his harsh breathing and claminess, the kid looked worse than bad.

"What do we have here?" he asked, despite already having an idea. It never hurt to check.

"I heard him calling for help in the middle of lunch and flew out," Clark said on the end of a sigh. "Pulled him out of the Grand Canyon. He freaked out when he found out where he was. Said he'd been close to the ocean a few minutes before that. Probably his first experience moving at super sonic speed. Then the next thing I know the kid's on the ground cause everything's too loud, too intense. Probably his first time with super hearing, too."

J'onn spent a minute just staring at the young man struggling to acclimate to his new circumstances before turning back to the Man of Steel. "Kid?"

"Yeah," Clark said cautiously, not understand the look on the other mans (aliens?) face.

"You don't know his name yet?" J'onn asked incredulously.

"He fainted," was Clarks answer, which turned out to be more defensive than intended.

"You didn't check his wallet?"

Clark blinked. "Umm, no?" He could feel the blood rising in his cheeks.

"Why don't you do that now," he suggested patiently.

Clark shuffled over to the bed, feeling like he'd been chastised. Why was it that the people he cared about could make him feel like he was an eleven year old again?

After gingerly turning the boy on his side and reaching into the back pocket not stuffed with a sweaty undershirt, he let him role back onto his back and fliped open the slim wallet. In it he found twelve dollars, all in ones, a ticket stub to something that sounded strongly of nerdy science fiction, a wallet sized picture, and California license, complete with goofy picture taken mid-sneeze. Glancing at the name, he snapped the wallet shut and handed it to the martian. He could find out the rest after J'onn had taken a look.

"Alexander L. Harris," he said. "Of California."

"Well," J'onn said as he walked over to the instrument table and picked up a syringe. Despite his invulnerability, Clark still cringed; needles had, and probably would, always make him squirm. "That's something, at least," J'onn said as if he hadn't noticed the Last Son of Krypton's squeamishness.

Clark tried to look away, to avoid the upset he would have when the needle pierced skin, but paradoxically he couldn't bring himself to look away. It was like he was watching a train wreck (not an actual one; he would stop that); he just couldn't look away.

J'onn took Alexander's arm, prepared him for a short blood-letting, found a vein. He pressed the needle into the crook of the boys elbow, and just as the needle was about to go in... it broke.

AN2: Yay for steely men! A bunch of people have noticed the 'Xander doesn't get much sun' bit from last chapter, so yay again. I think Clark came off a bit... less personable than he's usually portrayed (at least to my knowledge). It's probably because I have this image in my head of Superman being all Mr. Confidence and superhero cool; Clark being all humble and clumsy; and Kal-El, the real Clark, being just an ordinary guy who happens to come from another planet and likes primary colors. Oh well.

AN3: Also, in regards to what version of Superman this story is loyal to, it's not really following any specific canon very closely. You can probably assume that, unless stated otherwise, seasons one through three, with a little bit of four, of Smallville are more or less true, probably excluding most of the season finales. The season four stuff with Lana doesn't really mesh with this story, but the stuff with the girl who could transport herself anywhere is a good example of the taste in women who were bad for him he had then.

Thanks for reading; please review.

ATG

PS: AN4: The spell check won't work. T_T


	4. Medical

AN: You guys make me feel so special. All this attention makes me and my muse so happy. And a happy muse usually means more chapters are on the way (Though a nice sugar high can work too... Mmm, have to find cookies).

Onward, ho!

Normal Guy by AlexTheGray

Chapter 3: Medical

It was huge. Clark had only glanced at if for a moment, but it wasn't until he was sitting in his chair at the meeting table that he was able to appreciate the full level of humiliation a single photo could cause.

Projected on a large expanse of bare wall was the license picture of Alexander L. Harris. What had before appeared to simply be an untimely respiratory reaction now seemed a horrifyingly embarrassing testament to teenaged awkwardness. With his eyes screwed shut, the tip of his tongue stuck out from between his teeth, and his nose scrunched against the explosive exhalation, it was probably the most spastic picture Clark had ever seen. There were even little dobs of spittle just visible on the camera lens.

But that was not what made the photo so morbidly fascinating. No, the part of the picture that made Clark unable to look away was the greenish, yellowish... monstrosity. The Hawaiian shirt (a trend Clark was noticing already) was, at best description, a sort of yellow puke green color that hurt even his eyes. It was quite a feat when one of the only men (alright, alien) capable of looking directly into the sun with no ill effects had to turn slightly away to not suffer the full brunt of the eyesore.

But the worst thing was not that Alex had fallen victim to a pollen spore, or that he even owned a shirt with that level of radioactivity; no, the worst thing was that the boy had chosen to wear the shirt for the picture.

No one deserved to have their poor judgment displayed before an audience of strangers, least of all Alex, lade up in an infirmary bed as he was.

Alex. Clark had taken to calling him that, figuring that no one in possession of evidence of such an absurdly goofy period of life could go by anything but a nickname. And after all, he'd have to call him something other than 'kid' in this meeting.

The meeting which was so sparsely populated that only every third or fourth chair was occupied. Someone had run for snacks and takeout (Flash) before flying up to the Watchtower (courtesy of Bruce's space shuttle), and the products of the hyperactive food run were spread all across the table. Clark had managed to snag the carton of Oregon coast shrimp cocktail before anyone else could blink (except Wally, who'd been to the restroom and back in the time the super-sonic sneak occurred). There was something to be said about super-speed.

And so there they sat, poking their plastic forks (or chopsticks, or teeny-tiny shrimp forks) into their Styrofoam containers while they waited for the Batman to finish sifting through a thick stack of paper files. Wally fidgeted with his assorted junk foods and the heaping pile of wrappers, unhappily remaining in his chair after the glare Bruce had sent his way at his frenetic, hyper movements about the room. Dick sat sullenly prodding at his lo mein, sulking that, though allowed to come to the League meeting, Bruce had pushed him out of the way like a disobedient child. Diana sat back in her chair, nibbling on the Greek salad before her, amused as she watched everyone struggle to be still and quiet, to avoid Bruce's glaring wrath. Bruce hadn't even looked at the food, was bent forward over the mish-mash of file folders, flipping through the pages occasionally, but otherwise still.

And all of them seemed perfectly capable of ignoring the big bright projection, while Clark sat hunched around his food container, pecking at the seafood with his eyes glued to the blinding shirt.

Finally Bruce sat back, signaling the beginning of the meeting. He looked up at Clark, who was still staring gob-smacked at the picture, and asked, "You said the needle broke?"

With a violent twitch Clark came to himself. "That's right."

"Did you try anything else? Needles aren't exactly the best judge of invulnerability," the Gotham billionaire said, eyes squinting in consideration.

Clark could almost immediately feel himself bristle. "What? Did you expect me or J'onn to start stabbing him with any sharp object we had handy?"

Bruce's mouth had opened on what was likely to be an angry retort when Wally asked, "Where is J'onn anyway? Isn't he the one that's supposed to examine the kid?"

"He's with Alex now," Clark said, grudgingly letting the building argument dwindle. He noted that Bruce seemed oddly satisfied with the answer. "Making sure it's not a 'fluctuating state.' Is there any reason the kid shouldn't have powers?" He turned his attention abruptly back to Batman.

Bruce sighed as he leaned back in his chair. "His medical records don't show anything unusual in all the times he's been injured."

"Wouldn't that make sense? He seemed pretty new to..." Clark said, trailing off as Diana held up her hand in a halting motion, leafy green dangling from fork tongs.

"Wait, wait," Wonder Woman said. "'All the times he's been injured?' What do you mean? Was he... did he get hurt a lot?" None of them missed her hesitation, and Clark looked to the photo once again, wondering what the goofiness and bright colors hid about the boy.

Bruce shook his head, curbing the group's unspoken fears. "His records are rather normal for most of his life. A broken arm after falling out of a tree, a snapped collar bone rough-housing in the playground," he said, alleviating most of their fears; but everyone had grown to know Bruce enough to recognize the crinkle in his brow he now sported.

"It's during high school, specifically his sophomore year, that there's an abrupt increase in hospital time. It starts off with cuts and abrasions, then head trauma, then he only seems to come in for big injuries, probably learning to do his own first aid or self-examinations. If nothing else, it points to a high resilience factor; one record says he sustained a concussion via a school issued microscope and didn't receive medical attention until several hours later, after an extended period of unconsciousness. But no matter how many injuries he may have recovered from, these files in no way point to a resistance to injury."

They sat quietly for a time, wondering at the kind of life a person would lead to suffer such obvious and continuous violence. Even Wally's continuous gnawing had slowed as he thought over the implications.

"What stuff was this kid involved with?" Dick asked, his chopstick stirring cheerlessly in his food box.

"I don't know," Bruce practically snarled. At the disbelieving looks of the others his expression darkened, and he continued. "From what I can tell, the police in his town are worse than Gotham's finest ever were."

Everyone's eyes widened at the new bit of information. A police department worse than the GPD was a disturbing thought.

"It's like their paperwork system was designed and executed by a dyslexic third grader hyped up on sugar and caffeine, with the same level of attention to detail," he went on. The more frustrated he got, at least in this instance, the more he ranted. "None of their files are in the proper order, or even finished, and some have been completely blacked out or 'misplaced.' His school records aren't any better; apparently the school exploded the same day as his graduation ceremony, taking most of the students' information with it. I can't even access the towns newspaper because it's never taken anything but the form of paper hard-copy. We'll probably have to send someone into the area if we want to find out so much as the towns public meetings schedule."

They all sat around the table, taken aback at by Bruce's sudden loss of composure. For the Batman to be this upset about it, he must have really hit an information wall.

The quiet tension was finally broken when J'onn stepped into the room, a slim file folder tucked neatly under his arm. "My, aren't we ever so cheerful this evening," he observed, closing the door behind him with a soft click.

"What do you have?" Bruce growled, unconcerned with social niceties.

J'onn raised a single brow in interest before responding. "Analysis show signs of great physiological restructuring. CAT scans show heightened activity in parts of the brain devoted to sensory processing, tests affirm a resistance to injury, as well as an accelerated healing factor when he is." Clark opened his mouth, reminded of Bruce's earlier comment about testing Alex's invulnerability, but J'onn continued over him. "Also, from Clark's account of his encounter with young Mr. Harris, it appears that it was his first experience with super speed, and most of the other noticeable deviations. As far as I can tell, a week ago he was nothing more than an ordinary young man with with a hardy constitution."

"So what?" Wally asked, leaning against the table as he turned to more fully face the martian. "The kid just finished high school, and suddenly he's got these powers comin' outta nowhere? What, did he get bit by somethin' radioactive? Ooo, or maybe he's some kind of government experiment." He was getting excited now. Too many comic books, Clark thought.

"Or maybe that explosion you were talking about exposed him to those gamma-whatsits," he continued, turning back to the table. He was literally vibrating with suppressed energy.

"W can ask him when he wakes up," Dick said dryly, amused by Flash's enthusiasm.

"Actually, that's why I'm here," J'onn said. "The monitors show that he should awaken in a few minutes."

Wally was out of his seat and through the door before anyone else had so much as taken their next breath.

-----

Clark leaned against the wall next to the door, arms crossed over his chest as he waited. Diana stood to his left, reclining in the corner as she watched them fidget. Bruce stood by the bed, file folder in hand, Dick close by his side. Wally kept jumping around the room; kneeling by the kids feet, straining to see over Bruce and Dick's shoulders, getting a drink from the sink at the other end of the room. J'onn stood on the other side of the bed, watching the boy intently as his twitching increased.

Alex's breathing changed, and a wakeful groan escaped his mouth. His face scrunched against the renewed consciousness as he grabbed for a blanket that wasn't there. After a minute of useless groping, he stilled, one eye coming abruptly open.

Which he immediately closed again, the infirmary lights too bright for his sleepy eyes. Clark brought his hand to the light dimmer, turning the luminescent glare down. After a minute spent watching the kid rub grit out of his eyes, one eye again came open, more cautiously this time, followed quickly by the other. They got huge as the boy took in the other inhabitants of the room.

"What the hell am I on?"

Clark could feel the corner of his mouth curl upward at the incredulous query. Diana, Dick and J'onn hid their amusement by looking away, covering broad grins behind their hands. Even the perpetually grim air around Batman seemed to ease slightly. Wally, of course, snorted into his hand and started giggling like a school girl at a pop concert.

And the kid's eyes just got bigger. Apparently he thought superheroes didn't find anything funny.

J'onn cleared his throat before saying, "You aren't 'on' anything, Mr. Harris. And even if we had wanted to put you on something, sticking you with a needle would have been quite impossible."

"Huh?" was the ever so eloquent response.

"Your abilities probably wouldn't allow us to administer sedatives or painkillers even if you needed them," Bruce said, his looming figure making the boy clutch at his shorts and open shirt for reassurance.

"Abilities?"

"Yes. Your powers, at least in the current observable mix, are rather unique, and we were wondering as to where you might have obtained them."

"What Bats here is trying to say," Wally got out around a giggle, "is that we wanna know if you've been around any exploding gamma-whatchamacallits that would make you super fast or strong."

"Whoa, wait a minute," Alex said, bringing up his hands in a gesture to slow down. "Powers? Me? You've gotta be kidding. I don't have any... abilities. I'm ordinary. Decidedly un-special. Normal Guy. See me with a lack of power having."

"Be that as it may have been, our tests show that you have an uncanny ability to heal from wounds, or even repel injury altogether." This proclamation of his previously unknown abilities garnered an unintelligible utterance which may have been "Guah?"

"Not to mention your medical bills," Bruce went on, "which point to an 'extra'-ordinary amount of time spent being treated for injuries most often caused by blunt force."

"Hah!" Alex pointed triumphantly, strangely smug. "You just said that I was prone to injury, meaning I'm not good at escaping injury. What you just said is a paradox."

"Paradox?" Dick said, somehow amused by the vocabulary of an eighteen year old.

"Oh no," the boy said, clutching at his head dramatically. "I've got Old British Man (TM) speak. What has Giles done to me?"

Clark could practically see Bruce's face tick at the antics of his protege and the kid in the bed, despite his turned back. But the masked billionaire continued on, putting a bit more growl in his voice. "You're records show that you've been to the Sunnydale Memorial Hospital enough times in the past three months to know every nurse and medical assistant by name. Try telling me that's ordinary."

Something tickled at Clark's mind. Sunnydale?

"It's a dangerous part of the country," he rebutted, sticking out his chin to counter his uncertainty. "What with the gangs on PCP, a-and the barbecue fork accidents. It's not all that unusual for people to get hurt. Besides, it's mostly just scrapes and bruises."

Gangs on PCP, Clark thought, still chasing the niggling memory. What kind of town did this kid live in?

"As much as 'people' get hurt in a dangerous town, you seem to be a forerunner for hospital patient of the year." Bruce was watching his face now, looking for something in his expression to help him get all the pieces to this puzzle. "And if your town is so dangerous, why do your parents insist on living where their son gets so many 'scrapes and bruises'?"

Alex bristled at that, hands curling into fists. "What do you know about my parents?"

"Only that they don't seem to be too involved when it comes to your physical health. They don't take you to get treated, don't pick you up to go home; most of the bills seem to be paid either by your school librarian or out of your own pocket."

Clark couldn't see where Bruce was going with this. Maybe he was trying to rile a straight answer out of the kid. Maybe he was just upset with how little they'd been able to find and was taking out some of his frustration through the Inquisition. Whatever he was doing, Clark was too distracted by his own thoughts to figure it out.

"You would think that your own parents would at least care how you got home after getting hurt. Your father, a Mr. Anthony Harris, works as a mechanic, makes a good salary..."

Clark let Bruce's voice fade into the background as something in his mind clicked.

Sunnydale. Tony Harris.

"And your mother..."

Oh. Oh God.

"Jessica."

-----

AN2: I think I use big words when I don't know how to write something.

So it's about a week after I started this, and I just feel the need to point out that updates for this story probably will be limited to the weekends, as school tends to take up a fair bit of my time and concentration.

Also, in regard to Xander's home life, I'm not going to have him be a victim of physical domestic abuse. Vampire punching bag, sure. Sufferer of overprotective friends, hell yeah. Even a little parental negligence. But this will not be a fic about how awful Tony Harris was (which, yeah, the show pretty much nailed the Tony-is-an-asshole shtick). The Supes will not come to Sunnydale and beat on the Harrises. That's just not how I role.

And, another also, I'm thinking that I might postpone any "I come from a Hellmouth, how 'bout you?" discoveries or bonding until later in the story. I've got loose plans for how to handle that. Other loose plans include how Clark tells Lois, which I are more loose than planny at the moment. Any suggestions are always appreciated.

Thanks for reading; please review.

ATG


	5. Xander

AN1: Everyone who's reviewed my story is great. There are not enough adjectives ending in -ushy to describe how fantastic all this positivity is making me feel. If it weren't for everybody making me feel so good about this story and my ability to write it, it wouldn't be half so far along as it is now.

Thanks to everybody.

AN2: I just got home from watching Terminator: Salvation, so when I saw the comments posted by Greywizard and Rob, I immediately thought of John Conner (Christian Bale) saying "the penny has dropped; repeat, the penny has dropped!" And now I've got this weird double image of Christian Bale as both John and Bruce. Maybe a little Toth-like double-mint twins action is in order if I ever do a Batman/Terminator cross.

And on.

Normal Guy by AlexTheGray

Last time...

Sunnydale. Tony Harris.

"And your mother..."

Oh. Oh God.

"Jessica."

Chapter 4: Xander

The room was silent. All eyes were on him, every head turned in his direction. Diana was slack-jawed in the corner, Dick stood gaping like a goldfish, and Wally had gone completely still. All bad signs. J'onn's face seemed devoid of any feeling, and it was always hard to tell what Bruce was thinking under that cowl, but from what could be seen they were intense thoughts.

But Clark wasn't paying any attention to them. The kid - Alex, his name was Alex - was pale, so pale, almost sick looking. There was old sweat and new sweat collected on his cheeks and forehead, dark circles under his eyes, and more lines etched into his face than a young man his age should have. The look in his eyes was like a deer caught before the headlights of a mac truck. Clark couldn't have looked at him more deeply if he'd been using his x-ray vision, which he tried to do, unsuccessfully.

Alex's Adam's apple bobbed as if doing calisthenics as he gulped. He repeated the motion several times before he managed to get out a somewhat rusty, "What?"

Clark's mouth opened, but no sound came out. He worked his jaw a while, feeling like the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz before his hinges had been oiled.

He felt his lungs expand faster and faster, with greater gulps of air. Out of the corner of his eye he could see a dark cloud that seemed to be closing in from the sides until all he could see was the dark haired boy on the infirmary bed.

He felt his eyes role up into the back of his head, and then all he saw was darkness.

Who knew? Kryptonian really could feint.

-----

"Open wide."

Xander obliged for the black man in the black leather coat.

This was incredible! He was being examined by J'onn J'onnz. The Martian Manhunter. He'd had this guy's trading card since he was eleven, had written a report on him for his ninth grade social studies class; he'd stood in line at a police precinct in LA for a chance to see him in person.

So, while he was prepared to say 'awww,' no matter who the guy was, Xander was not, he repeated, not going to turn his head and cough. Being a superhero could get you a lot of things, but that wasn't one of them.

When a q-tip was shoved at the inside of his cheek instead of the tongue depressor he'd been expecting, he didn't know quite what sound to make, so he settled for an uncertain "Agnyah?"

This was monumentally weird. And not the usual Hellmouthy kind of weird; he was more than used to that. No, waking up surrounded by members of the Justice League was not something to be found in Sunnydale, no matter how many times he'd daydreamed it. Batman and the masked vigilante formerly known as Robin standing at his bedside, J'onn J'onnz looking over his monitors, Wonder Woman standing in the corner in all her Amazonian glory, and the Flash giggling by his pillow.

Willow was never going to believe this.

Especially the part where he apparently had super powers. Where Superman, the Man of Steel, knew his mother. Where he had super powers because...

His eyes moved to the other bed in the room, now occupied by a certain red and blue covered Kryptonian. This was beyond the freaky; this was so out of Xander's past experiences with the strange and kooky that his mind was stuck on repeating how out of his world this was, and he was running out of adjectives.

What was he gonna do? This was the Last Son of Krypton, and here he was, laying in an infirmary bed after finding out...

After finding out what? That Superman, the Superman, was his... that they were...

"We should have the test results in a few moments," came the voice of J'onn, startling Xander out of his daze.

What did he mean they'd have the results? Weren't these things supposed to take time? Sure Xander hadn't had much time to watch TV in the last few years, but he remembered that the tech guys on crime shows always took way longer than this. Didn't they? Couldn't the Justice League have the decency to be slow like on TV?

A firm but gentle hand came down on his shoulder, making him nearly jump off the bed. He turned to find Wonder Woman standing over him. He also found that his chest was heaving and he was panting like he'd just run a marathon (which he apparently could do without the panting and sweating, leaving him bereft a simile or two).

"Do we need to get you a paper bag?" asked the Amazon. Good gods, she was tall, and beautiful, and strong. If she were evil, she'd probably be his type. But then, depending on the answers to the bets he'd made with Jesse in junior high, she very well may be his step-mother.

He felt his stomach flip uncertainly. He wondered vaguely if everyone else could actually see him changing colors, going from the startling flush-red he knew he was to the pasty green he felt coming on. Maybe they would think he had some kind of Kryptonite poisoning.

The sound of the printer made him tense even more, if that was even possible. He had to get out of there. Whatever this was, it was a mistake. He was Alexander Lavelle Harris, always had been, and for better or worse, always would be. He couldn't be... couldn't be...

He had to get out of that room.

He shifted slightly under the weight of the Wonder gals hand, setting his foot cautiously on the floor...

And with a lurch, he was gone.

-----

Clark slowly came back to consciousness, the constant beep-beep of various monitors and other medical equipment infiltrating his foggy mind. He shook his head groggily, sending his hair into his eyes.

When he managed to win the fight against gravity (harder than you would think for a superhero) and open his eyes, the room seemed to tilt wildly before righting itself. J'onn stood at the counter, flipping through a file, and Diana was sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair, laconically attacking her nails with a file. Dick and Wally were mysteriously absent from the room.

"Congratulations." Bruce's gravelly voice came from his side, startling him up into a stiff seated position. "It's a boy."

It took Clark a minute for his befuddled brain to sort through the words, numerous and complex as they were, but finally he caught on. His head whipped in the other direction, a tiny gust of misplaced air puffing out at the quick movement.

The bed was empty. The starched white sheets were scrunched on one corner and the rest was distinctly devoid of a certain Hawaiian shirt clad teenager.

His head whipped back around, and he fixed Batman with a very un-Clark-like glower, full of a fierce and panicky determination he hadn't known he had.

"Where is he?" he ground out. Everyone in the room went still, eyes locked on the irate Kryptonian.

Bruce splayed his hands across his knees in an uncharacteristic show of nerves. "Dick and Wally are looking for him." His tongue darted out to moisten his lips as Clark's knuckled popped with the force with which he held the sheet beneath him. "Scanners show that he's still within Watchtower perimeters." The sound that came out of Clark's mouth could only be described as a growl. The very idea that his... that the kid would just walk out onto the face of the moon was... it was definitely making Clark cranky.

"He's most likely found a quiet space to be by himself," J'onn said, cutting into Bruce's ill-advised attempt to soothe Clark. "He seemed to be dealing with the situation in much the same way you did, only with more running and less fainting. You might try looking yourself, in a place that you would go, depending on how deep the similarities go."

Clark sat staring at J'onn for a moment, his growing anger having been swiftly dissipated by the mild Martian. Then his brain again kicked him into motion, and he rose from the bed, only tripping on his cape a little.

-----

Clark found him at one of the many porthole-shaped windows lining the hallways, looking out at the extraterrestrial view. The surface of the moon spread out and out until it ended in a curving horizon. The Earth sat like a huge, blue sun rising out of that horizon.

Alex had his arms wrapped around himself, his shoulders hunched as if seeking shelter from a stiff wind. His bright red shirt was wrinkled and still slightly damp from sweat, his shorts were dirty, and he had no shoes.

Clark reached out his hand, instinctively seeking to offer comfort, but he hesitated with his hand just scant inches above the boy's shoulder.

He couldn't offer this boy, this young man, comfort. He hadn't earned the right. Hadn't been there, hadn't seen him when...

Hadn't been there for so many things.

He let his hand fall down to his side, and looked out the window over his son's shoulder.

"It's funny," he said after a few minutes of quiet contemplation. The slightest turn of Alex's head let him know that he had his attention, and that he hadn't surprised him. He could probably chalk it up to the kid's newly enhanced senses.

"I used to look out at the stars when I was your age," he continued. "Now here we are, looking at the Earth."

He cleared his throat and shifted uneasily on his feet at the silence after that. Okay, not so funny. But he was running on fried batteries here. The funny police could cut him some slack.

"Look, I, uh, I know this is kind of strange," he said. He didn't even have to look in the reflection of the glass to see if the kid was rolling his eyes, he could feel it like the sun on his face. "But whatever's, uh, happening, with you, I can help you with it. And this, this thing, this me knowing your mother, and being your... well, um... That we can work on. I-If you want, Alex."

And with that he waited. Waited for some ranting, some denial, some 'you aren't my father, the man who raised me' hoopla. It was the kind of thing he'd said when he was a teenager. Back when Jor-El had just suddenly bulldozed his way into his life. And he suddenly realized exactly how Jor-El would have felt if he had been more than an AI replica of his father. Because that was the position he was in now. History was repeating itself, only this time he was in Jor-El's shoes, and this boy was in Clark's.

And so he waited. But all he got was silence. And then..

"Xander."

"Huh?" was the ever so intelligent response.

"My friends," his son said, turning away from the window to finally face his father. "They call me Xander."

It took Clark a minute, but when he finally recognized the statement for the olive branch that it was, he couldn't help the smile that split his face.

-----

AN3: (Written in mid second scene) Gah! This is killing me. This is writer's block on a monumental scale, and I am simply not strong enough to conquer it. I spent the last week rewriting one sentence. Must... fight... the block!

AN4: Thank the muses for taking pity on me. I finally finished this chapter. Pronouns hate me, and I'm feeling like this story should be called "Panic and Flee" because that's all the main characters seem to want to do. Though I strangely like a fainty Clark. Anyway, it's late, so I'll finish my disjointed rambling and post this puppy.

Thanks for reading; please review.

ATG


End file.
